Oh, all the silly gender ideology

In which I discuss the spectrumy spectrumy madness on my mind and invent a new acronym

Here in NZ it’s Thursday evening before the long weekend, and I’ve been trying to write one big serious thing about gender ideology but it keeps getting bigger and wider, deeper and more complicated and changing and being impossible, so instead here’s a bunch of short sharp takes on things bugging me.

1. I am still thinking about pompous little Max Tweedie (director of Auckland Pride) when he was playing favourites with Kim Hill back in February¹. His absolute young man’s assurance that he could talk for all the gender questioning girls as part of his community. His gleeful insistence that gender affirming therapy (i.e. whacking off breasts and taking hormones and interfering with natural development) is a human right and he’s so there for that. I say, line up Max Tweedie, with all the generations of patriarchal young and old men who are absolute sure that a woman’s authentic self involves making their perfectly healthy bodies unhealthy through radical modifications. Line bloody up. You really have no idea. Just go away and out of conversations about control and sabotage of women’s bodies. Um further Max, yup bit further.²

2. Actually very disppointed that RNZ’s long time journalist / presenter Kim Hill, usually formidably clever and brilliant, is using words like TERF seemingly without questioning. Please Kim, you are going to be so embarrassed when you realise that this language is not about human rights. It’s about supporting the silencing of women, making gay people feel ashamed again (MGPFAA?), and is arguing against there being two actual sexes, you know, like the basis of human evolution. And I am sure, in your clever heart of hearts, you know evolution is an actual thing. We can treat trans people with respect and dignity without thinking that trans women grow actual vaginas when they transition. Most of them know that. But try saying that on twitter and you might you know, lose your job, or get hounded with death threats cos TERF TERF TERF (okay excellent update I'm adding 14/5/22 see footnote³).

3. If it wasn’t so goddam ghastly I’d be highly amused by the fact InsideOUT, a kind of riff off UK’s Mermaids, is getting inside all the NZ schools and some grown up workplaces and running workshops supposedly talking about diversity but actually training people in gender and sex nonsense. The most hilarious thing being that the InsideOUT chief executive is terribly proud of dropping compulsory science at high school, and doesn’t really know why tarot works…it just does.⁴ So yes, top credentials there to rule the little cartel of people that tell people sex doesn’t really exist except in people’s heads and it’s bigoted to be same sex attracted, i.e. lesbians are bigoted if they are just not into penises (look, look, I get to use my acronym again, MGPFAA).

4. Reliance on I’m a Taurus so I can be quite resistant to change for information about sex, sexuality and gender is understandable because kids must be utterly confused. The NZ school curriculum guidance for 5-12 year olds,⁵ for the life of it, can not bring itself to say that there are two sexes, one which has penises and one which has vulvas. And the handful of exceptions prove the rule don’t disprove it. Instead the guidance peddles a whole lot of incoherent nonsense that does not distinguish between sex and gender and sexuality, or between feelings and facts, and encourages teachers to get kids to look at how sex is constructed through time. Um yup, good frank and full information there. Definitely setting kids up for a clear understanding of themselves and pride in their bodies.

5. I’m annoyed by the NZ Ministry of Health not telling us how much “gender affirmation” treatment is going on for kids. Why? You don’t need to identify anyone. This is our young people and potentially irreversible treatment. There are important conversations to be had.

6. I’m annoyed with all this “affirmation” talk anyway. It’s negation. It says your sex is wrong, you need to fix it.

7. Particularly perturbed that trans ideologists can not come up with a coherent theory with internal logic that we can argue properly with. But no, no, it’s all spectrumy spectrum, fluidy fluid for them. It’s all: Gender and sex are totally different, oh no actually they are the same. Trans liberation is exactly like gay liberation, oh no, we actually want to run workshops to help overcome other people’s gayness. Oh look at us today, holding up signs saying trans kids don’t need to be fixed, oh yeah that was us yesterday arguing that fixing trans kids is a human right and life saving. I mean get it together you big doofuses.

1. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018829445/playing-favourites-with-auckland-pride-s-max-tweedie

2. Because if the UK is anything to go by, the biggest group of candidates for transition are young women and Max is aligning himself with a long and vicious tradition of making young women feel ashamed of their natural bodies and with attacks on women’s bodily integrity in the name of ideology.

3. So since I posted this, my faith in Kim Hill has been somewhat restored by Kim's interview of Kathleen Stock (author of Material Girls) on her Saturday morning show on RNZ on 14/05/22). While not being at all chummy with Kathleen Stock I think Kim gave Kathleen a fair hearing.

4. http://blog.littleredtarot.com/meet-tabby-learn-astrology/

5. https://hpe.tki.org.nz/guidelines-and-policies/relationships-and-sexuality-education/